LONDON – Afghanistan needs five years to take charge of it own security, President Hamid Karzai said in London Wednesday as countries gathered for key talks on tackling a Taliban insurgency.
The country's international allies, which have around 110,000 troops tackling the Taliban, are expected to push at Thursday's talks for Afghan forces to take over security duties as rapidly as possible.
Karzai will use the conference to urge his partners to fund a 500-million-dollar programme to persuade moderate Taliban to stop fighting in exchange for jobs and security -- a plan that has been winning support.
"We will be trying our very best to be ready to defend the major part of our country from two to three years and when we reach the five-year end point, that's when we would be leading," Karzai at a meeting with students in London.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who also answered questions from the students, said the Afghan security forces were expected to grow to number about 300,000 in two years.
The Afghan army currently numbers about 100,000 men, with the police force at around 90,000.
Brown also voiced support for Karzai's programme for reconciliation with moderate Taliban, to which Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday Germany plans to offer 50 million euros ($70 million) over five years.
"To weaken the Taliban, you divide them and you offer those people who are prepared to renounce violence... a way out. And that is something that we will do and something that President Karzai wants to do," Brown said.
Karzai reiterated that such an offer would only be made to Taliban who are not members of the Al-Qaeda network.
"We will continue to seek peace in Afghanistan using all instruments that are available to us," Karzai said.
US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told reporters in London that Washington would not accept talks with Al-Qaeda.
"There is an American red line, and it is Al-Qaeda. There cannot be any negotiation if they don't renounce Al-Qaeda because those people cannot be negotiated with," he said.
Merkel has said Thursday's meeting was crucial to determining the success or failure of the mission in Afghanistan.
"In London we are talking about nothing less than setting the future course, a course that I am convinced will determine the success or failure of our mission," Merkel told parliament after talks with Karzai on Wednesday.
But the Taliban dismissed it as a waste of time and regional power Iran also said it would be pointless and would not attend.
The only solution to the conflict is for all "invading forces" to leave immediately, the Taliban said in an emailed statement.
"The London conference is in fact aimed at extending the invasion of Afghanistan by occupying forces... (It) is just a waste of time," it said.
Karzai said in Berlin Wednesday that Afghanistan, where violence has reached record levels eight years into the costly international effort to defeat the Islamists, did not want to be an endless burden on its allies.
"Afghanistan wants to soon be defending its own territory, its own people with Afghan means," he said.
The head of NATO's military committee said in Brussels meanwhile that top officers from the Western alliance, Russia and Pakistan had given unanimous backing to the international strategy in Afghanistan.
"There was a feeling in the room that we are getting it right," Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola told reporters following talks with chiefs of military staff from more than 60 countries.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said it was pleased the reintegration of Taliban and reconciliation had taken centre stage in the run-up to Thursday's conference.
"We have always said a military effort alone cannot succeed and there is a clear need for a peace process to begin," spokesman Aleem Siddique told AFP.
Source:abs-cbnnews.com/
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